I saw these sentences the other day from potential IELTS Band 7 students:
- It is disagreed that increasing the availability of public transport will reduce pollution significantly.
- Analysing both the views, the essay will delineate the reasons behind why governments ought to contribute more money to the problem of drug dealing.
- It is also predicted that antithetic aspects of teaching using online materials will be removed by creating a more efficacious way of learning for the children.
The writing here is somewhat stilted and comes across as being quite unnatural both because of the structures and also the vocabulary.
In the first sentence, who is disagreeing? Is this general disagreement or is it the writer who disagrees? It lacks clarity and I also don’t think many native speakers would write a sentence like this. Better to say, ‘Many people disagree…’, or use the noun – ‘There is widespread disagreement that increased availability of public transport will reduce pollution significantly’.
In fact, using nouns over verbs is very good style in formal writing.
In the second sentence, and this is such a common phrase among IELTS students, ‘this essay will….’ is both over-used and again unclear. The essay really can’t do anything, it’s the writer who will set out the arguments and ideas. Delineate? I’m not sure I have ever used this word in my life (describe or indicate with accuracy). In a piece of writing about personal ideas and opinions can anybody be truly accurate. The word overstates the intention.
Finally, in the last sentence the use of antithetic (possibly antithetical?) (again a word I have not ever used) and even efficacious are examples of what I call ‘vocabulary stuffing’ in effect, looking for the most unusual synonyms in the hope that the examiner will be impressed.
How to use Vocabulary
Be aware that just because a word exists, it doesn’t mean that it will be appropriate to use it in your IELTS writing. Some words fall out of use and become archaic. Others are used only in certain situations, for example in poetry (literary) and many words can be too formal or too informal or simply not the right word for what you want to say.
So how can you make sure that you are choosing and learning the right words?
There are two ways of doing this.
Firstly, make sure that you look up words in a reliable source.
- English has a very wide vocabulary and if you check words in a bilingual dictionary it may not give usage advice
- It’s important for any word that you really don’t know, to check it in a reputable English-English dictionary (all serious, advanced level, English language students MUST have access to a good dictionary and also a good grammar resource). Personally, I like Macmillan but Oxford, Collins or Cambridge are good too – don’t feel you have to go a buy a new one!
- A good dictionary will tell you if a word is in use, provide details about its use (formal, informal, archaic, literary etc.) and generally give good examples of how to use it.
Secondly, check out good model IELTS tasks
- These will give you a good idea about how such tasks should be written
- Most IELTS teachers will have examples – there are also many examples in the Cambridge IELTS practice test books, written by examiners
- This is how you are expected to write for band 7 and above – you cannot do better than these examples by using weird and wonderful vocabulary – accept the guidance and work on trying to write like these examples
Remember vocabulary only counts for 25% of your total mark the other things are equally important so give everything equal practice time and don’t spend too much time on learning obsolete and unnecessary vocabulary.
Difficult vocabulary
I saw a post recently about ‘difficult words’. There is no such thing as a difficult word – except perhaps regarding spelling. All words are just words and it is what you do with them that counts. There seems to be a belief that certain ‘uncommon’ words will get you band 7 or 8. Thinking that learning so-called ‘difficult words’ and using them you can increase your score is nonsense. What will increase your score in both writing and speaking is accuracy, clarity and well expressed language that fits the questions both in speaking and in writing.